The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-02-02
AN ART STUDENT IN PARIS.
The Sights and Scenes Among
the Painters.

There is no life like that of the Paris
art student, 1t is unrestrained by con-
ventionality and is full of temptations,
but the young fellows who are living it
while they train themselves to be the
Miliets and the Turner's and the Dores
of the future, seem to like it amazingly
AIT teaching, as the uninitiated would
understand it, is not. The student who
goes TO Paris to learn to paint is not
| coached from the first brush marks on
his canvases till the last. He must have
enough of the artist within him to
render this unnecessary before he viii
be permitted TO study art there at all.
But, once he shows that, his teaching
doesn't cost him anything-the French
Government takes care of that, and the
only expense he has to bear is that of
actual living.
Ot course ne attaches himself to some
| ateiler, and together with a mob of
other students paints there daily. Once
day the master comes in and inspects
the work of the students. As he passes
down the room he examines the un-
finished pictures. To this one he gives
a word of advice, the next one he may
compliment, though praise is rarely
accorded, and the next one may be
shown where he has made a glaring
error. Then perhaps the master will
vouchsafe a few words of instruction
to everybody and then he is gone.
Everything has been decorous while
the master was present and the stud
ents have given close attention to all he
has had to say. But they have hardly
gotten back to Their easels after the
little talk which wound up his visit,
before a yell of amazemenU is heard
from specialized youth, who Is cover
ing his canvas with impressions of
some bit of nature in hazy tints.
Everybody gives attention to the cry,
when it is seen that the young i'm
pressionist's half finished picture, easel
and all, has started in fight toward the
ceiling.
Away over in the corner there one
may see the cause of the victims dis
comfort. Some mischievious comrades
have rugged up a rope and block and
have played on the youngster very
practical joke indeed.
Over in another part of the great
room one may perhaps find student
expiating some infraction of the rules
of the place by serving as model for
the rest. Or he may have assumed the
position as a result of lot casting. At
all events, the young man whose pose is
here sketched by the artist cannot be in
a very comfortable position, but while
he endures the rest are painting, and
he may have the satisfaction OF seeing
the counterfeit of his body in bondage
in a picture hung upon the line at the
next salon.
By and by a commotion ensues over
dispute that has arisen between
two young brush wielders and every
body fiocks about them. 1t is soon evil
dent that the disrutants will never agree
and some one proposes a duel with
brush and paints. A fair hit will, of
course, be very palpable one and very
shortly the men have stripped and
mounted a high improvised platform
for the fight, the body of each is marked
with chromatic evidences of his oppo-
nents skill.
And so atelier life wags 'merrily on for
the Paris art student. The jokes are
sometimes practical to the verge of
endurance and the jollity of the place
may be seasoned with too much coarse
ness sometimes, but no great harm is
done.
But woe to the sensitive soul who can
not bear the horseplay of the place, for
he will surely live to be sorry for his
delicacy,